The Wronged Princess - Book I Page 4

  “Well, of course, it doesn’t hurt anything,” Faustine agreed. “What of your determination that your son take pride in a decision he himself could or should make?” She spoke with a gentle softness to her tone. “You have always wanted more for him. You have said so yourself."

  "I await your point." Thomasine frowned, her impatience evident with a tapping foot.

  Faustine knew Thomasine's irritation hid her true fear. Fear her only son would fall victim to the same weakness of the mind that ravaged their own father. Thomasine's fears were real enough, she allowed. For the very reason she harbored those same fears for her own son. She also believed as Thomasine that many of their father's traits were in direct relation to a lack of self-discipline, self-worth and strong values.

  But Thomasine's resolve had weakened and Faustine felt her duty in setting things back on their righted path. She drew herself up and met Thomasine nose to nose, hands on her hips.

  "I would like the same. He is my nephew after all.” She waved her wand threateningly.

  Thomasine’s whole body sagged with abject misery, she dropped her face in the palms of her hands. “But what if it goes too far and he actually marries the wrong one?”

  “Trust, my dear, trust.”

  "Oui, oui. I suppose you are right.” Thomasine lifted her head.

  Relief assailed Faustine at Thomasine’s renewed determination. She was right, Thomasine just needed reassurance they were following the set course for their future leadership of king and country.

  "And put that stick away. You are going to poke someone's eye out with it." Thomasine spun on her heel and quit the chamber stirring a streak of dust in her wake, ever the regal queen.

  Faustine scowled at her retreating form.

  Chapter 5

  In a blink, the unwelcome fortnight had passed with the same haste the tower clock struck midnight two weeks past. And now, here she sat imprisoned with her evil stepmamá and two vicious sisters, encapsulated in a cramped, albeit, plush cage. Cinderella focused on the dark paneled walls with the lovely sconces. Brocaded silk draped the interior for added insulation. She huddled deep in her thin wool pelisse using one tight fist in place of missing buttons and slid the other into the pocket of her apron. Her fingers sought the comforting presence of Marcel. Her smuggled companion warming her more than the heated bricks used to offset cool fall air. It was the frigid company she rode in of which she had no choice.

  He nudged her calloused fingers as if offering his reassurance.

  Cinderella swallowed. She could only pray she did not cast up her accounts in the confines of the luxuriant Royal contraption, that or cry. She focused on the smooth the heavy curtains of deep red rich velvet trimmed with thick gold tatting; concentrated on the bounce of perfect matching horses as they trotted closer to a more pressing concern.

  The ultimate nightmare of Esmeralda marrying Prince Charming. Her Prince. She had to bite back the bitter tears clogging her throat. She looked unseeing out the carriage window.

  “My daughter, the Princess of Chalmers.” Stepmamá’s elation in the very words running through her head chilled Cinderella to her bones. She prayed, yet again, for a sustaining stomach. It shouldn’t prove difficult since she’d not had much in the way of sustenance. She tugged her gaze from the passing landscape of bright colored foliage to risk a glance to her arch enemy, Esmeralda. The effort to keep her face bland and free of expression, lips relaxed, was excruciating.

  “Mamá, s’il vous plait.” Esmeralda breathed.

  Esmeralda did seem rather terrified but Cinderella knew it was just an act. She’d seen it time and time again through the years; from both Pricilla and Esmeralda. Consummate actresses—both of them. Cinderella’s resentments ran too deep to harbor much in the way of sympathy.

  Esmeralda’s eyes were downcast but her lashes beat as rapid as the wings of a…a…flying monkey! Cinderella bit back a derisive snort that would have more than likely earned her being bodily cast from the carriage. She could just make out a pale strain of white around Esmeralda’s mouth. Esmeralda certainly had no trouble playing up the fear.

  Stepmamá reclined on the leather upholstered bench across from Cinderella with all her heated focus on Esmeralda. Unfortunately for Esmeralda, Stepmamá did not like her battering eyes one bit. Poor little Essie. If she had not taken to snatching Prince from under her nose, Cinderella might have been inclined to feel more empathy towards her. After all, Cinderella knew all too well the detriment of Esmeralda’s current position. In any event, Stepmamá had never treated her own daughters with anything less than pampered favor.

  “Please what? Pray tell, Essie,” Pricilla hissed.

  Cinderella flinched at the animosity spewing from Pricilla and pressed herself deeper into the space of her own little corner clenching the fabric deep inside her pocket. A mewed sound reached her ears and she loosened her hand quickly. The bench she shared with Pricilla vibrated with Pricilla’s fierce anger, making Cinderella grateful in this instant Pricilla’s anger was not directed at her. The atmosphere so thick in tension indicated no one had heard her Marcel’s cry.

  She blew out a soft relieved yet irritated breath. Pricilla wasn’t even the one who was wronged. Resentment burned through her gut. She hid it by shifting her gaze out the window to the mountainous view once more. The rising majestic splendor against the afternoon sky had little calming affect. Nor did the lush trees or stalks of soft pink heather lining the hillsides. It was a façade, just like her bland demeanor.

  “You know that shoe was not mine, Mamá.” Esmeralda’s voice was soft, determined.

  The quick whiplash of a resounding crack crashed through the interior of the carriage. Cinderella whirled in her seat to see a stark imprint of Stepmamá’s hand already forming on Esmeralda’s bloodless cheek. She bit the inside of her mouth to keep from gasping. Even Pricilla cowered deeper into the fold. Shock filled the enclosure from Cinderella and her stepsisters. Stepmamá had never once in Cinderella’s memory raised her hand to Esmeralda or Pricilla.

  “Never speak those words aloud henceforth, child.” Stepmamá snarled. Her eyes burned with maniacal fierceness over each occupant in the confined space that grew smaller with each passing kilometer. “Am I quite clear?” She asked with a sudden calm, tugging a kerchief from the reticule in her lap.

  Cinderella saw Pricilla’s sharp nod from the corner of her eye and matched a quick one of her own, then dropped her eyes. She could only remain unscathed if she remained invisible. Purely a matter of survival, she justified.

  In the blink of an eye Cinderella's heart reached out to Esmeralda. How could it not? Just as quickly she shoved away the tender sentiment. Only more heartache lay in that direction.

  “We seem to be slowing,” Stepmamá announced with a feral smile.

  *****

  Prince stood rooted in the Grand Hall awaiting the dreaded sound of coach wheels that would propel his nightmare into broad daylight.

  In the last fortnight he'd suffered dreams of a ticking clock pounding in deafening fervor pulsating in his ears. Streams of white satin whipped in violent gusts behind a vanishing specter he chased, all leading to a trail of glittering jewels that stopped cold before an empty glass shoe. The velvet brown eyes that squeezed the strings of his heart fluttered in a vehement frenzy, seconds later, fleeing for her very life, a cyclone in her wake.

  The dream, so brilliant and vivid, startled him to full awareness, heart pounding and body drenched in sweat. He fought his way to an open window, gulping the cold night air.

  The hopelessness of the situation weighed heavily. She was the wrong girl. Prince wanted to bellow to the heavens at the injustice. He would willingly reap the consequences, come what may, when he made his deal with his devil. A deal to set himself free to find her, his midnight ghost.

  Inhaling deeply, he pulled his mind to the present and glanced toward his father. He stood in regal magnificence hands clasped at his lower back, donning a customary absent expression on
his worn and cheerful face. No need to wonder what he was thinking. The book he’d been so engrossed came to mind.

  Prince flinched at his ungracious thoughts. This whole situation was a dilemma of his own making, he admitted, not without disgust. He had no one but himself to blame—it still bode disaster for his future. An acknowledgement that offered no lasting comfort no matter what angle he tried peering from.

  “Where’s Arnald?” he asked, shifting his gaze to Mamán. He should not have to suffer this insanity alone. Something about her expression—or rather, lack of one, caught his attention. He studied her carefully from hooded eyes.

  Stately, noble. True, she was the queen. Her stature required composure in any situation however awkward. And this one certainly qualified. He hid his grimace behind his own blank façade and studied her cool dignified poise.

  “Hmm?” was her dignified response. Unruffled and utterly calm.

  Strange for a mother on the brink of meeting the future bride of her only son. His gaze dropped to hands gently clasped in her lap as she too awaited the arrival of the dreaded carriage.

  As they all did.

  The son-to-mother discourse he’d strived for had never come to pass. For his every approach had met with some untimely crisis demanding her attention.

  “Sir Arnald? Your nephew?”

  Prince leaned in and scrutinized her more closely, eyes narrowing. Did he detect a fraction of tension about her mouth? Her composure was perfect, of course, hands stoic and relaxed.

  Her eyes lifted to pierce his, unwavering. He tossed her an uncaring smirk. The one he'd used as a lad of no more than four and ten. A handy little thing that kept him out of myriad scrapes at the time. An incontrovertible blush tinged her cheeks. He released a sigh. Without fail, something was amiss. She had not been able to fool him for years now.

  Clipped footsteps coincided with the sound of reining hooves jerked his attention to the forefront. His cousin’s appearance just beyond Papá’s shoulder answered, he turned to the daunting position ahead. His inhalation stuck in his throat, almost strangling him. With one further glance to Mamán as she rose and smoothed graceful hands down her rich cerulean blue silken skirts, he decided there would be no help from those quarters. Her expression, while mild, held an undercurrent of smugness. Most puzzling.

  He tried another deep, careful breath. Squaring his shoulders he set out to meet his uncertain future.

  The sun in an overly bright sky, Prince could not help but wonder if the wind speed had not increased upon the footman’s release of the carriage door.

  Commotion seemed to ensue as to whom should first step forward.

  Mystery solved as curling, copper tresses reflected the sun's beams, but for the saints he could not grasp the color of her eyes in all their rapid flurry. It was his future bride.

  It happened in an instant.

  The suffrage of fatigue and lack of appetite this two weeks past finally took their toll. The unstoppable fiasco of ‘the shoe fitting someone other than his intended,’ the constant analyses, examinations, scrutiny of dissecting the entire egregious scenario…well, was it any wonder he felt such an irregular tingle in the air? A clutch in his chest? A weakness in his knees?

  It suddenly became too much to bear. The officious wind, the blinding sun, the horror of a marriage he may have inflicted upon himself—for the rest of his life—had him gasping for oxygen. Odd, when the air seemed to surge about him in great gusting gales.

  The atmosphere took on a shimmering quality similar to wavering heat waves of an open flame. A scintillating radiance. Without warning the perfect escape rose up to meet him, in his scandalous surrender to the flagstones.

  In a dead faint.

  Chapter 6

  The interminable hours that dragged by before the lumbering carriage drew to its final agonizing halt were enough to send a girl mad. Even one accustomed to long bouts of silence. ‘Twas not that the wheels moaned or contrived anything else so undignified. Just a long and trying drive entrapped with a maniacal stepmother and two cruel stepsisters.

  Cinderella detected the sound of rustling of skirts beyond the door; the shift in weight indicated the driver’s movements left the carriage rocking softly, amid excited murmurs. A scrape denoted the step placement to allow their descent. The door swung open flooding the inside with sudden light. Cinderella squinted and only just plucked her foot from harm’s way in Stepmamá’s haste to alight.

  An eerie inclination swept through her body. An instinct that were she to remain behind her absence might go unnoticed for hours, days even. A wistful sigh escaped at the fantasy. She knew she was much too much of a coward to carry off such a daring scheme. So it was with great resolve that forced her exit behind Stepmamá’s generous form and grandiose cascade, thus affirming Cinderella’s invisibility.

  A collective gasp sounded upon Cinderella’s descent. She did not believe for one inkling of a second that the group's notion would be cheering Stepmamá. They were at Chalmers Palace—a place where she was not so grand, excepting in body mass perhaps. Another ungrateful thought, she winced.

  In retrospect, the hum did resemble something more toward alarm rather than admiration. And, truly, if they were alarmed by Stepmamá's presence, it must say something for the intelligence of the population, she supposed. Oh, my, her stepsisters cruel humor must be rubbing off. Unable to resist, she risked all by leaning to one side to peer beyond Stepmamá where a cloistered group hovered all agog.

  Cinderella's patience ebbed slightly as it was difficult at best to see around Stepmamá’s immense build. A gradual trepidation settled low in her belly as she descended the step, cognizant that no one paid her any mind. The coolness of the flagstones seeped through the thin soles of her shoes and stockings.

  Something appeared quite wrong.

  Her gaze locked on black shiny boots that reflected the sun in their high polish. She followed the line of the massive form lying on the ground. Her hand covered a convulsive choke as her gaze followed the line of the dark breeches stretched over strong muscled limbs, to arms flung out. He was dead?

  And she knew. Knew those were the arms that had enveloped her in a grasp that defied gravity when he’d guided her through a crowded ballroom that parted with their presence. Had her floating on air when he’d murmured his “How do you dos?” When she never thought she’d come down to earth again.

  Snatches of rumbling conversations poked at her like the pricks of a thousand needles. But they made no sense.

  “…was too much…”

  “…dropped like an anchor in the sea…”

  “…the poor dear…”

  “…has not been the same since…”

  “…a shame…”

  “…such weak constitution…”

  A weak constitution? Inappropriate giggles threatened to escape. They could not be speaking of her Prince. Cinderella fell to her knees. Unmindful of the sharp gasps surrounding her, the outraged squawks of her stepsisters and Stepmamá.

  With tentative fingers she touched his hand. Warm fingers curled round hers. She could not see his face, the curve of his lips, or shock of dark hair. But there was no mistaking the crackle of awareness over her skin. The prick of cupid’s arrow pierced her heart as stark as a bolt of lightning streaking across a blackened sky.

  Prince.

  “Cinderella!” Stepmamá snapped, giving her quite the start. Had she said his name aloud?

  “Prince, Prince, please wake, my darling,” she prayed under her breath.

  “Stop that incessant muttering, child!” Pain wrenched through her jerked arm as she found herself hauled from her knees, her hand cold without his touch. She resisted the urge to struggle knowing the futility of resistance.

  “Give the man some air,” someone called out.

  Tears filled Cinderella’s eyes as she found herself jostled aside, pushed farther and farther outside the ensuing circle surrounding her love’s lifeless body.

  *****

&n
bsp; Prince could only imagine how he appeared, sprawled on the flagstones like a bird shot from the sky. Horrified at what could not have possibly happened, yet what must have happened, not a muscle flinched by sheer will. Only shallow intakes, he dared to breathe in the scent of the mid autumn air touched with pine cones.

  A gentle breeze sounded with the rustling of falling leaves. The cool stones seeped through the coat on his back. Only the chaos of shocked voices stayed him. There would be no facing down his dear mamán after this disastrous debacle. She’d won this round, hands down, whatever her game.

  A strange, appealing warmth caressed his fingers. There was a touch of familiarity he found unidentifiable. Every cell in his body ached to grasp it, run away with it. A touch full of comfort and affinity, whispering he’d found where he belonged. Even flat on his back. An odd notion to be sure. It made no sense.

  The crass brittle sound of his betrothed’s revolting mother chased away the warmth, dissipating it with the swiftness of the sharp cold breeze of her voice. A sound he heartily wished he’d been able to eradicate from recent memory. Alas, ’twas not to be so.

  “Cinderella,” she snapped.

  It was too much to hope no one had noticed his precarious position, he supposed. Prince chanced a peek through the barely raised lid of one eye. The sun still shone brightly overhead through fluffy white clouds. Yet brisk wind gusts seemed to mock his very soul. He stifled a wince on sight of the round of faces peering over him.

  A wretched situation.

  How could a man of nineteen years succumb to such a state? He fervently wished he’d waken from some dreadful dream. No such luck, of course, as his mother barked an order to Arnald in a low commanding tone that could surely have raised France from the depths of despair over the years. He clamped his eyes shut allowing his cousin to hoist him over one shoulder like a sack of turnips, away from the ogling audience. The further the better.